Scripture Passage
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Sermon Text
Okay, let us hear the word. Isaiah chapter 43, verses 14 to 21 “thus says the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. For Your Sake, I will send to, Babylon and breakdown all the bars and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation. I am the Lord your holy one, the creator of Israel. Your King says the Lord who makes a way in to see a path in the mighty waters who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior, they lie down. They can not rise. They’re extinguished. Quenched like a wick do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I’ll make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me. The jackals and the ostriches for I give water in the Wilderness rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people who might form for myself so that they might declare my praise. This is the word of the Lord.
Life is Like a Path
Life is like a path. When you say that life is like a path, life is a path. Do you agree with that? Or is life bunch of unconnected and disconnected events that has nothing to do with each other. This happened and another thing happened and another thing happened. It just random events, they’re not connected at all. You cannot say that it is kind of a connected path. It’s just happening every moment.
Or how do you look at it? When scripture often says, a life is like a story story of Abraham, the story of Jacob and Joseph, there’s a story. So their life is a story. In other words, whatever is happening to them is connected with each other and they create it kind of weaves, a story. So in that sense, a life is not just a whole bunch of unconnected events, but it is connected events that create a story that creates kind of path and we need to find a path, but it’s hard to see a path and find a path. It is pretty difficult. What is the path that i’m walking on. Where does this path lead to and how have I lived all my life? What kind of path have I walked on? If life is a path, am I paving that path? If life is life is a path, do I just follow a general path that everybody is following? You finished school, you get a job, you get married and have children and all that.
Each Person’s Path is Very Unique
Is there a general path that everybody just follows and then I just walk on the same path? Or is their a unique path just for me. Not for everyone else, but just for me is their a unique path just for me? And I want to say that there is no path that is alike. Every path is unique. As every person is unique, you have your own way. You have your own path to walk on. That’s what I believe. Each person’s path is very, very unique. You cannot walk on other’s path and are the people cannot walk on your path.
Your path consists of your dream, your vision, your passion, the career that you chose, the friends that you make along the way, the kind of family you came from and the kind of family you make now and a kind of community you belong to all of these things together and make a path for you and that is very unique to individual and no one can walk the same path. I mean we may experience the same events, but what you get out of that event is very different. Today you hear the same physical message from me, but each person takes that message differently and processes it and digests it differently and different things are triggered. So even though we are in the same place same time, but what you get is very, very different, different and very unique for each individual. That is your path. How you make a decision, how you feel, how you relate to the world, how you build yourself. All these things shape your path. My friends, I don’t think there is a path already made for you.
You Must Forge Your Own Path
I don’t think the path is yet made. The Path you’re gonna walk on is not made yet. You have to make it. It’s not that there is already a path that you just have to walk on, no. The path is not there yet it’s not created yet. Yet you have to create it. You have to make it now at this point. But depending on what kind of path you make, the destination will be very different. If you take the TTC Bloor line, you’ll end up in Scarborough, but if you take the Yonge line, you’ll end up in North York, so depending on what path you create, the destination will be quite different. If you live out your life with resentment, disappointment, greed and selfishness. You’ll create a path that leads to bankruptcy, of life and meaninglessness. But if you live out your forgiveness, love, self giving, and hope you will create a path that leads to an abundant life and eternal life. And then I realized that yes, I have to make a path now, but realized that I cannot make a path all by myself because I don’t know life enough. I don’t have enough knowledge or enough wisdom, not even enough strength to make my own path. Often I experience that I get drifted away and don’t know where I am and where I’m going. I just live busily doing everything. And at one point I question, “where am I? Where am I going? Where do I want to go?”
My Canoe Anecdote
Many years ago I used to take a college group to Algonquin Interior. So portaging and all that stuff, sometimes 10 people, sometimes 20, 30 people. I think one trip we even had about 40 people, like troops with canoes. So we went there and it was a very windy day. And on that day, I went out in canoe by myself. I just wanted to experience the quietness. So I went out in the middle of that lake and just lied down and enjoyed the peace and serenity. I really enjoyed the silence and peace. So for about 30 minutes or an hour, I just lied down there looking at the sky, but you know, when you lie down there in the canoe, you don’t know whether the canoe is moving or not. You think that you’re at the same place. But after, 30 minutes I went, “Where, am I?”, you know, I got totally lost and I looked around and way back there.
There was our campsite. I usually look out for the island because of bears, you know, to be safe. Bears won’t come there. I hope. So, and then I found and island so I canoed there by myself. It was windy day. It was so hard to canoe by myself because it goes back and forth like this and that. And then finally I got to the island. But somehow the problem is you get there and then I missed the island. And because of the current, and the way the wind was going like this and there was a guy, I’m not sure, maybe it was John, I maybe. I didn’t know who it was. There was a guy standing at the rock and then I wave right. Help, help. How do you say hi? James is raising his hand, it was James. Yeah, I mean I was going to James. Hi, how are you? And for about five times of saying Hi back and forth he realized, oh, he needs help. So he came out with other guys and then they saved me.
We Need to Look to God to Help us Create our Paths
Sometimes, you know we need help. I don’t think I can create my path all by myself. I need help from God. Israelites tried to create a path on their own. They thought they were smart and strong enough. And then Jeremiah a different prophet, he said the mistake of the Israelites were that they created a cistern, like a kind of hole on their own, the things that they made a mistake one day, try to dig a hole all by themselves and they dug a hole that cannot contain water. These two things. How true that is for us. We tried to dig our life by ourselves and at the end of we realize this whole cistern cannot hold water. I create a life that cannot hold water. The Israelites, they try to create their own life and ultimately at the end where did that path, lead them to? To exile. They lost everything. They lost their land, their temple, their identity and everything. That’s sad.
You know if all your life you’ve lived a really good life and at the end do you want to experience bankruptcy? Do you want to get to a point where life is so meaningless and empty.?. I hope that we don’t end up there. Isaiah today, he said this, “their life was like in a desert and in the wild sea the path they created, lead them to the place they didn’t want to be.” But Isaiah gave us good news the message of good news. The good news is even though because of our mistakes, we ended up at the desert, but God is going to create a path for you in the desert. That’s Isaiah. What Isaiah proclaimed God would even make a way in the desert.
No Matter Where we are, God will be There to Help us
Because of their stubborn and arrogant attitude. They created a path that led them to nothingness but god created a new path for them. That’s what God does. My friends, sometimes we make innocent mistakes because we don’t know enough because we create a certain path because of our innocent mistakes, but other times knowing that this will lead to nothing but because of our greed and selfishness we followed the path anyway. Sometimes we are so blinded and we don’t see what we are doing. We are just making ourselves busy doing anything and everything without knowing where this life leads to? We just live mindlessly and habitually and we just let things happen and by doing that we create a path that takes us where we don’t want to be, but the good news is that God has given us up. If you’re. If we are at the desert, he’ll come there to make a path. If we are in the mighty waters, he will come there to make a new path in the wild sea. This is what God said, “I am about to do a new thing” The next verse says, “now it springs forth. Now he springs springs forth to you not pursuing.” You know, when I read this this time, what is that? Where is that?
When I read this, this time, somehow that new thing sounded like new path to me. I am going to make a new path for you. Do you not perceive it? I’m going to make a new path for you don’t you see it? That’s what Isaiah said to the israelites and this is what God said. Also, I will give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people. You are God’s chosen people. God will give you to drink. even though you are creating a path of our life, but we are not creating just my own path. I said we have a very unique path. That’s why Jesus said, take the narrow road. That means your own unique way. Live your life, but yes, my path is unique, but we also create a path together. Each unique path gathers together and create a path for us to walk together. Every drop of water gathers and creates the river and each river, each river gathers and makes an ocean together. We’re creating a path and this path that we create together will enrich each and every one of your unique individual paths. It will enrich you only with God. We can create a path that leads to abundance. We don’t want to end up in the desert. We want to be where God’s abundance is, I don’t know where you are individually, but wherever you are, you can always start a new. You don’t have to repeat the same path as you have lived. Now you can create a new path with God and this is what God said “do not remember the former things or consider things of old the path is not made yet for you and it you have to make a path to not make the same path necessarily. You have to make your own wonderful path from this moment on and do it with God, not by yourself, not on your own.
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